SUPER HOT: it’s exactly what it says it is

VR itself is still a very “new” field, with independent content creators, publishers and studios alike scrambling to figure out their collective places within the ecosystem that’s been born via these technological innovations. Today I’m here to tell you that SUPER HOT has no such problems with figuring things out and may be one of the best VR experiences available at the moment, hands down. Ever seen a John Woo movie? If not take a second to get up to speed, it’s ok, I’ll wait. SUPER HOT essentially drops you directly into the very best parts of the most brutal, vicious, often 5+ vs 1 massively outnumbered and outgunned fights and demands you to expertly perform a ballet of bullets, melee attacks, throws and dodges in order to survive and proceed to the next level. What SUPER HOT has going for it over the several other high profile VR “wave shooters” is a very unique mechanic that sets it apart from the competitors by a wide margin. That mechanic being that time only moves when you do. It’s a little hard to explain so I’ll let video do the talking:

OK, all caught up? Good. SUPER HOT has to be the most viscerally satisfying experience I’ve had on the oculus rift to date. Nothing beats two perfectly timed shuriken throws followed up by a grabbing the knives out of the air that were being carried by the now deceased first wave of enemies and then using those knives to deal with the second wave. The difficulty can be brutal but the satisfaction of a perfectly timed and executed run is just beyond words. A deep level of strategy is required for some of the later levels with second by second planning of your exact position and the specific shots and attacks you want to make almost mandatory in order to survive the often over the top and downright insane situations you’ll find yourself thrown into. The super minimal art style seen in SUPER HOT also is an excellent fit for VR, the high contrast works well and I generally don’t feel like anything should be done differently although at first glance I’ll admit I was a little off put by how simplistic the world seems but in practice it works very well and doesn’t take away from the experience at all.

Recently a new “Endless Mode” was added via the “Forever Update” to help extend the replay value a bit beyond the already fairly decent campaign levels and it delivers with exactly what it says it does, an endless stream of enemies thrown at you within a mansion that’s rife with weapons and cover opportunities in a never ending bid to see how long you can survive. SUPER HOT is a very active experience in VR as well, I found myself needing to take regular breaks as the level of exertion is a bit higher than a lot of VR experiences I’m familiar with, as such I’ve added SUPER HOT to my regular VR workout routine as you end up doing a lot of cardio and can end up pretty exhausted without realizing it just due to the sheer intensity of the action which will have you running on adrenaline.

In closing I just want to take this opportunity to say SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT SUPER HOT. Ok, I think I got it out of my system. If you have a Oculus setup go pick this up right now. If you don’t have a VR setup, a non VR version is also available that still showcases the same cool mechanic but you’ll really be missing out on the visceral, heart pounding experience had in VR.